


Pretty Little Liars

by PR Zed (przed)



Category: Take That
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-15
Updated: 2012-11-15
Packaged: 2017-11-18 16:50:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/563256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/przed/pseuds/PR%20Zed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Mark makes the decision to lie during the filming of For the Record, he's looking to avoid pain, not cause more.  But things don't always work out the way you plan, and soon enough his choice is pulling Robbie back to England, and Howard and Jason to the Lake District to help their friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pretty Little Liars

**Author's Note:**

> Art by ice_cream_skies.

As soon as they signed on to do the documentary, Mark knew the question would come up. How could it not? After all, it had been nearly the first thing his friends and family had asked back when it had all kicked off. It was the first thing most people still asked when they realized who he was. It was what the fans waiting outside his solo gigs most wanted to know.

But how to answer, that was the problem.

He could have told the truth, but the truth was messy. The truth involved pain and tears and far too much alcohol. He'd spent years telling the truth, or pieces of it, until he often wondered what was fact and what was polite fiction created for public consumption. In any case, he didn't want to dredge it all up again. He didn't want an interviewer plumbing his depths or harrowing his soul or whatever the fuck they did.

So, a lie, then. A plausible lie, plausibly delivered would be best for everyone.

It took a day to craft the lie, to make it offhand enough that it wouldn't attract notice, to add a joke at the end to deflect any further probing. And then it was only a matter of practice. Nigel might have been a first class bastard, but he'd taught them all the benefits of practice.

He practised when he woke up. He practised when he wandered around the house. He practised before bed and while taking the dog for a walk. He practised in the garden and in front of the mirror. He practised the words until they fell casually from his lips, leaving no hint of just how hard he'd worked on making them seem so nonchalant.

So the day of the video shoot, when the interviewer asked the question and the cameraman and sound bloke were there to record his answer, he was ready for them.

"How did you feel when Robbie left?"

"I didn't think about it much, if I'm honest. I didn't think about it much. I just knew I had two weeks to learn how to rap."

* * *

It was a good thing he was an insomniac. At two o'clock in the flippin' morning most poor bastards would be asleep. But not him. No, he was awake, staring at the ceiling, listening to the voice telling him the documentary premiere next week was going to be a disaster, and contemplating ambling downstairs for a cup of herbal tea when the phone rang.

He sat up and got the phone before it rang a second time.

"'lo."

"Jay?"

He'd hoped it was a wrong number. He'd especially hoped it wasn't some delusional fan that had got hold of his unlisted number. He hadn't had to change it for a couple of years now, and it was such a pain in the arse—dealing with BT, calling everyone who needed to know the number, and then memorizing the damn thing himself—he didn't want to do it again. But he'd never considered that it would be Rob—Robbie Fucking Williams—on the other end of the line.

"Rob?" He took a deep breath and tried to clear his sleep-deprived brain enough to deal with Rob. "How the hell did you get my number?" Which, he thought later, was probably not what he would have chosen as his first words to Rob in years.

"I asked Markie for it a few days ago."

"Why?" That Rob was calling him was astounding enough, but that he'd actually gone to the trouble of getting his number from Mark left Jason baffled.

"I just wanted to chat."

"You do know it's two in the morning here?"

"Is it? Christ, I'm sorry, mate. I never can keep the time difference straight out here. I'm always calling my mum in the middle of the night." And then Rob giggled.

Jason was immediately taken back to the early days, with Rob pratting about, and winding him up, and then getting out of all responsibility for whatever hurt he'd caused or damage he'd done with a cheeky smile and a laugh. It had driven Jason mad back in the day. He'd come close to smacking Rob more than once. But whether it was the lack of sleep or the distance he finally had on those years, this time Jason found himself laughing along.

"Your mum must love that."

"She's threatened to buy me a clock for the house out here and set it to English time."

"I bet she has." Jan Williams loved her son, but she'd never been blind to his faults.

"She says it wouldn't do me any good, though."

"She's probably right." Jason gave one more laugh, then took in a deep breath. "So, why _are_ you calling me at two in the morning?"

"It's not important." If Jason hadn't known it was impossible, he would have said Rob sounded contrite. "I can ring back another time."

"It's all right, Rob. I wasn't asleep."

"Insomnia?"

"You've watched the documentary, then?" He was already regretting talking about the bleeding insomnia. Made him look a right nutter.

"Yeah. Got the DVD a couple of days ago. Finally stuck it in the player tonight." Rob cleared his throat. "That's sort of why I called."

"Do you want to know why I didn't batter you back in the day?" Jason had watched the bloody documentary himself only yesterday. Closed the curtains, made some tea, and steeled himself to revisit a past he was still coming to terms with. It had been an interesting experience. He'd felt so much while watching it: pride, embarrassment, an unexpected sense of loss. At the end he'd felt so drained he'd actually managed a couple of hours sleep without benefit of sleeping pills. 

"No. Well, yeah, I do, but that's not why I called."

There was a long silence while Jason waited for Rob to come to the point, and Rob made a series of reluctant noises at the other end of the line. Finally, Jason could take no more.

"If you're not going to tell me, I'm hanging up."

"No!" He couldn't see Rob, but Jason would bet he'd just jumped out of whatever chair he was sitting on.

"Then come to the bleeding point so I can go back to not sleeping."

"Is it true?" Rob blurted out.

"Is what true?" He was really not up for Rob playing cryptic games. "Is it true I thought you were a bit of a geek? Yeah."

"No, not that. I knew that." He heard Rob take in a deep breath before he spoke again. "Is it true that Markie didn't think about me much once I'd gone?"

"You still talk to Mark. Why don't you ask him?"

"I can't, can I?" For a moment, Rob sounded more like the teenager he'd been back when they'd first been pulled together into the band and less like the man he'd grown into.

"Oh, for fuck's sake..." Jason drew in a sharp breath and tried to calm himself before he said something he'd regret. Because _Jesus_... For Rob to start worrying now about whether Mark had or hadn't been thinking about him after they'd tossed him out of the band for being such a prat, that was bloody rich.

Jason had worked hard to not think about those weeks after Rob had left. They'd all been in shock, even him, and he hadn't even liked Rob all that much. But Mark...he'd been completely gutted. He'd wandered around like a ghost that had forgotten who or what it was supposed to be haunting. He and Howard had kept an eye on Mark while they'd rehearsed for that last tour, had tried to get him to eat enough, had tried to cheer him up as much as they could. Had tried to make sure he didn't quit the band just because his partner-in-crime had buggered off. Even Gary, clueless as he'd been back then, had looked out for Mark when he'd thought of it.

But they'd never talked about it. None of them. Not then and not now. Jason hadn't asked Mark how he was. He'd never talked with Howard or Gary about how sad Mark was all the time. And none of them had talked about the real toll Rob's leaving had on Mark with the documentary crew. Now, as then, it was all stiff upper lip and the show must go on.

"Jason?" Rob's voice broke into his thoughts.

Fuck it. The show had been over for ten years, and a stiff upper lip never did anyone any good.

"He was gutted, Rob. Absolutely gutted." Jason took a deep breath and then the words were flowing from him, a flood he'd had dammed up for far too long. "He barely ate, and he'd cry when he thought no one was watching. He'd disappear for hours at a time, and we never knew when he'd be back or even _if_ he'd be back. We were all worried about him. Even Gary, and you know how far his head was up his own arse back in the day. Is that what you wanted to know?"

Jason heard a sound down the end of the line that might have been a sob, but he ignored it. His sympathy was with the band mate who'd stuck with them, with Markie, not the one who'd fucked off.

"Yeah," Rob finally said, his voice a near whisper that Jason had to strain to hear. "Thanks."

Before Jason could say anything else, Rob had rung off, and there was only the buzz of the dial tone in his ear. Jason slammed the phone down and swung his feet over the side of the bed. Jesus, what had he done?

He swiped his hand across his face, then stood, shrugged into a jumper, and padded down the hall, the floor cold on his bare feet. Once in the kitchen, he filled the kettle and brewed a teapot of strong black tea. 

After that little chat, he wasn't going to be sleeping tonight. He might as well have a cup of tea, watch the sun come up, and then decide what the fuck he was going to do next.

* * *

Rob carefully hung up the phone, pulled out a cigarette, and tried to ignore the way his hands were shaking as he struggled with the lighter. When the fag finally lit, he took a long drag and waited for the hit of nicotine to calm his jagged nerves. This was one of those times that he wished to fuck he'd never stopped drinking. A swallow of vodka would help just about now. Or a whole fucking bottle of the stuff.

Well, he'd told himself he'd wanted the truth. Now he had it.

And he'd thought watching the documentary had been bad.

No, fuck it, watching the documentary _had_ been bad. He'd wanted to scream every time Nigel had appeared on screen. He'd expected the bastard would slag him off, but Nige really showed his true colours when they'd told him Howard had nearly committed suicide and he'd tried to act all concerned. The bastard couldn't have shown a genuine human feeling if he'd been offered a million quid for the effort. 

But the worst part had been when he'd hit the section about him leaving the band, and Mark had said he hadn't thought about it much. That was when Rob had felt like he'd had been punched in the stomach so hard he couldn't breathe.

It shouldn't have hurt so much. Not after all this time. Not when he knew he'd done more than his fair share to hurt Mark long before he'd left the band. It would have served him right if Mark had never talked to him again. But to have Mark say that he hadn't thought about him, to imply that Rob leaving hadn't mattered to him, that had been gutting.

Mark had to have lied. He _must_ have lied. But Rob wasn't sure how he could find out.

He couldn't ask Mark. For all that they were still friends, there were things they never talked about, topics that they would circle around without ever hitting on. The rest of the boys were the only other ones who'd know the truth. 

There was no fucking way he'd ever call Gary for anything. He knew now that half the anger he'd directed at Gaz had really been meant for Nigel, but that still didn't mean that all would be forgiven, on either side. Howard was out as well. He'd never get the truth from him. How had always treated him and Mark like little brothers and was entirely likely to try and spare his feelings, or Mark's. Which had left only Jason.

Jason was an honest man, and he didn't have much time for Rob. Which was fair enough; Rob had spent the better part of five years horribly winding Jason up. He'd doubted Jay would be at all tempted to try and spare his feelings if the answer to his question was a hard one. And Jay hadn't disappointed him.

Jason had given him the truth: his leaving had devastated Mark. The only question was, what the fuck did he do with that truth?

It was ten years on. Did that truth even matter anymore? Had Markie lied because he'd moved on? Or had he lied because it hurt as much as it ever had and he'd wanted to avoid the pain?

There was only one way to find out.

He took one last drag of the cigarette, until it was ash all the way down to the filter, stubbed it out and then picked up the phone again. Josie picked up on the third ring.

"You do know I'm not on the clock just now," she said. Josie wasn't much for "hello," especially not when she knew it was him and she knew he was about to make yet another shameless request of her.

"You're always on the clock, love," he said, feeling ever so slightly guilty and ever so slightly naughty, glad that he had such a good understanding with Josie: he made outrageous demands on her time, and paid her every pound she was worth. "I need a favour."

"What is it?" He could hear her pull out a piece of paper.

"I need a ticket to England for first thing tomorrow."

"London?"

"Manchester. And I'll need a car and driver waiting for me when I arrive."

"You're not getting back in with your old lot, are you?"

"Depends on what you mean by "getting back in with.""

"You stupid sod." Josie never was one to pull her punches. It was why they got on so well. "Well, just make sure you stay away from Barlow, would you. I don't want to have to bail you out of jail if you duff him up."

"I just need to see Mark." He might as well put her partly out of her misery. Josie had a soft spot for Mark. But then, everyone who met Mark had a soft spot for him.

"Out of the blue, just like that?"

"Yeah."

"And you can't just call him?"

"No."

There was an exceedingly long pause as she mulled over this information. Josie knew where most of the bodies were buried in the Robbie Williams Empire--hell, she'd buried quite a few of them herself--but just how close he'd been to Mark Owen was one secret that he'd never shared with her. Not that he'd even know where to start. Even he wasn't sure how to untangle the snarled mass of emotions he had concerning Mark, tied up as they were with the even more snarled mass of emotions he had about Take That. Love and loathing. Excitement and misery. Fear and anger. He'd felt it all where the band was concerned.

Rob held his breath, waiting for Josie to tell him to sod off, but she didn't. She did what she always did. She gave in to his ridiculous request.

"Fine." Her voice took on the clipped cadence of her problem-solving mode. "I'll call with the flight times in an hour and have the tickets in your hand by tomorrow morning. I'll get the same driver you had last time in Manchester. You liked him and he didn't hate you by the end of the week, so we should be able to get him back. Can you pack up on your own?"

"Yes, mum."

"Cheeky bastard. Just mind you're ready to go in the morning."

"Yeah, I'll be ready."

There was another pause, and Rob thought she'd already hung up. But she had one last thing to say.

"Don't let him break your heart, Rob. And don't you break his, alright?" 

"You're a witch," he said with a hiss. Trust Josie to suss out what he'd thought was a deep dark secret. "Mind reader like you, you'd have been burned at the stake back in the day."

"Mind you remember that the next time you try and hide something from me."

And then she rang off and Rob was left there, sat on his sofa, wondering if this was all going to end in tears, and if so, whose tears they'd be.

* * *

When there was a knock on the door at the entirely uncivilized hour of ten in the morning, Howard considered ignoring it entirely. It was probably a double-glazing salesman, he told himself as he pulled up the covers over his head. Or the postman with a package, which he could damned well leave at the door. But when the knock was repeated not once but twice, and with increasing urgency, he knew he was going to have to answer it. After all, it wasn't like he was living in the heart of London anymore. Anyone who was knocking on his door had made an effort to get here. He might as well make an effort to yell at them. He pulled on pair of track bottoms and a t-shirt, then clomped down the stairs, preparing a scathing speech for whoever it was who'd decided to wake him up.

What he found when he opened the door would have been impossible even a year ago: Jason Orange standing on his step, with two takeaway coffees and a bag that looked promisingly like it might hold pastries clutched in his hands. A year ago, he hadn't known where Jason was, and Jason wouldn't have known where to find him. But if the bloody documentary had done nothing else, it had begun to repair the rifts of the last ten years. They'd all been talking, meeting up for drinks, for meals. They were becoming real friends, not the thrown-together, manufactured friends they'd been marketed as back in the '90s.

He was about to give Jay a joking bollocking, but the tentative look on his face completely erased any thoughts Howard had about yelling at the poor bastard.

"Jay. What are you doing here?"

"I've buggered things up."

"You think too much, you," Howard said as he waved him inside the house.

"And you don't think enough," Jason replied, a half-hearted re-opening of an old argument neither of them cared that much about winning.

"At least I can sleep at night."

"Don't remind me."

Howard led Jason through the house to the kitchen, which thankfully was one of the few rooms in the house the builders had completely finished with. Elsewhere in the house he was still navigating loose floorboards and piles of tools.

He settled in at the kitchen table, took the coffee and croissant that Jason handed him and then looked closely at Jason.

"What have you buggered up?"

"Rob called me last night. Well, this morning, really."

"Rob called you?" He couldn't keep the squeak of surprise out of his voice. If he'd had to choose which of the four of them Rob was least likely to call, he'd have put Jason second, right after Gaz.

"Yes, Rob called me. Close your mouth, How. The gobsmacked look isn't becoming on you."

"Okay." Howard closed his mouth. "Rob called you."

"He'd watched the documentary." Jason tore his own croissant into pieces but didn't eat a bite of it. The bastard was delaying things, that much was clear.

"And..."

"And he wanted to know-" Jason stuttered to a stop and looked down at the massacred croissant as if he didn't know how it had got in that condition.

"What the hell did he want to know, Jay?" Howard was louder than he meant to be, and Jason jumped at the sound of his voice. He looked up at Howard, his eyes wide and guilty, all of which made Howard wonder what he could have possibly done that was so awful he didn't even want to say what it was.

"He wanted to know if Mark had thought of him at all after he left," Jason blurted out in one go.

"And what did you tell him?"

"The truth." Jason blinked hard, and his voice was so soft that Howard had to struggle to hear the words. "I told him the truth."

"Fucking hell, Jay." Howard nearly crushed the coffee cup in his hand. "Why would you do that?"

"He asked. And it was late. And Christ, Howard, I thought it was about time Rob heard the truth. That he learned his actions had consequences." There was an uncharacteristic flash of anger behind Jason's eyes, the sort of anger only Rob could bring out in him.

"So you thought you'd punish him, is that it?"

"Maybe." Jason's gaze flicked to the corner of the room, deliberately avoiding Howard's eyes.

"Maybe." Howard deliberately put down his coffee cup so he wasn't tempted to fling it across the room. He loved Jason, really he did, but just now he'd have cheerfully throttled him. "But it's not just Rob you're punishing. It's Mark."

"I'd never—" 

"Mark didn't bring up all that misery for the documentary. He could have said something, and he didn't. Did you ever think that's the way he wants it? That he wants to forget it." Mark had been such a mess after Rob left that Howard couldn't blame him for wanting to block it from his mind.

"Oh." Jason's mouth formed a shocked O, and Howard could see the blood drain from his face.

"You have to tell Mark what you did."

"I can't." Jason shook his head.

"Would you rather he heard from Rob with no warning? You know what he's like where Rob's concerned. He's got no defences at all."

"Isn't that just a bit condescending? He's a grown man, How. He's survived for ten years without help from any of us. He's not Little Markie anymore."

"He'll always be Little Markie to me. And I'll always look out for him, even if you won't."

"That's not fair, Doug." Jason sat back in his chair looking like he'd been slapped. Howard felt his own anger fade, and the protectiveness he'd always felt towards Mark expand to encircle Jay as well. He reached out and took one of Jason's hands in his own.

"You know I'm right, Jay. Else you wouldn't be here. You know you buggered up. You said so yourself. Now it's time to go fix it." He squeezed Jason's hand, and smiled the ghost of a smile when those long fingers squeezed back. "I'll come with you. I won't let you do this alone."

"Thanks, How."

There was no thought in what he did next, only necessity. He stood, moved to the other side of the table, pulled Jason to his feet, and had him in an enveloping hug before he knew it. He could feel Jason's heart hammering in his chest, could smell the coffee on his breath, could hear his breath sounding harsh in his throat. He was struck by how right this felt, by how much he'd missed the easy physicality they'd all shared. But mostly, he was struck by how much he'd missed Jay.

Christ.

What an inconvenient time to find that he still cared a bit more about Jason than was probably healthy for either of them.

But there'd be time to deal with that later. He gave Jason one last squeeze, then moved back to his own side of the table. 

"I think Mark's at his house this week." He took one last sip of his coffee and popped the last piece of his croissant into his mouth. "Fancy taking that naff car of yours up to the Lakes?"

* * *

It had seemed easy enough when Howard suggested it. Just drive up to Mark's house in the Lakes. But finding the bloody house had been harder than they'd thought. Especially when all they had for directions were Howard's hazy memories of a trip a few months ago when it had been Mark doing the driving, and a map Mark had scribbled on the back of a bar napkin when he'd met Jason for a drink last week. It didn't help that part of the map was blurred from the ring of Mark's wine glass.

"There aren't that many roads," Howard moaned beside him. "How hard can it be to find?"

"Sod it," Jason said as he saw a post office up ahead. "I'm asking for directions."

He parked on the side of the road and got out of the car, Howard trailing behind him, and pushed open the door of the post office. It was the usual sort of place you get in a small village, with tins of mushy peas, dusty shelves of school supplies, a bin of cheap CDs for sale in the front, and the post office counter at the back. A middle-aged woman stood behind the counter, buried in what looked like the Times crossword.

Jason crossed over to the counter.

"Excuse me, I was wondering if--"

"Hold your horses," the woman said, holding up one hand even as she kept her eyes on her crossword puzzle. "This one's been driving me crazy all day."

"We just--" Howard tried.

"And I just told you I'll be with you in a minute."

So much for the stereotype of the friendly village post office, Jason thought as he looked at the woman's head of lightly greying curls. Well, if you can't beat them...

"What's the clue?"

That got her attention. She looked up, sharp grey eyes meeting blue.

"It's the Times crossword. None of your Daily Mail rubbish."

"I've been known to do a crossword or two in my day. As long as it's not the cryptic."

"Alright, then. To break into bits. Sixteen letters."

Jason thought a moment before he responded.

"Compartmentalise."

The woman looked back down at her puzzle and scribbled in the word. With pen, not pencil, Jason noted. She was serious about her crosswords.

"It fits!" She looked back up, suddenly delighted with her interlopers. "Now what can I do for you gentlemen?"

"We're looking for a friend and we've got a bit lost. We were hoping you might be able to give us directions."

"I know most of the people 'round here," she said, pride in her local knowledge beaming from her face. "What's your friend's name?"

"Mark Owen."

Jason had never seen someone's face shut down so quickly in his life. One moment she was all smiles; the next she was looking at them as if they were a pair of first formers trying to nick a packet of crisps.

"Never heard of him. Now if you wouldn't mind." She swept one hand towards the door, and turned back to her puzzle.

Howard looked over at Jason, his eyes wide. Jason shook his head and then turned back to the woman.

"I know you're just trying to look out for him, but we really are his friends."

"Hmmph," was the only reply.

"Listen, you know who he is. Don't we look a bit familiar?"

She looked up again and inspected each of them carefully. "Well, you're not Robbie Williams or that Barlow bloke."

"Nah, we're the other two," Howard offered.

"You could just be saying that." She gave How a steel-eyed look. "You could be more of those crazy fans that turn up every now and then. You could be _journalists_." She said the final word with the loathing other people saved for serial killers and politicians.

At least she was admitting she knew where Mark was, if only in the most roundabout way.

"We could do one of the old dance routines," Howard said, even as Jason gave him an elbow in the ribs.

"The crazy fans usually offer to do that."

Jason was struck with sudden inspiration. He ran to the front of the store and rooted through the CD bin until he'd found what he was looking for.

"Look at this." He plunked the copy of _Take That and Party_ on the counter in front of the woman, its cover cracked and a price tag, for ninety-nine pence, nearly hiding Rob's face. "I'm Jason Orange," he said, putting his finger on his picture, even as he inwardly cringed at the vest and naff haircut of his younger self. "And he's Howard Donald." He stabbed a finger at the picture of Howard. At least Howard looked better in the vest than him.

The woman peered at the CD, then carefully looked over both of them.

"I suppose it is you." She gave a sniff. "You two are scruffier than you used to be, aren't you?"

"Well, we're older than we used to be," Jason admitted. "Could you give us directions now? Mark really will be pleased to see us." He hoped he was right on that last point.

"Alright, then." She pulled out a piece of paper and began drawing a map that was much better than Mark's bar napkin scrawl. "You want to go right out of the village, and then take the third lane to the left. Mark's house is right at the end. You shouldn't have any trouble finding it."

"Thank you so much." Jason gave the woman one of his smiles, and he saw Howard give her a wink.

"You're welcome. But if you annoy our Mark, you'd better not come back. I'll give you both a cuff on the ear."

Jason escaped into the late afternoon light, Howard behind him.

"Christ," said Howard. "If I ever need a bodyguard again, I'm hiring her. She's tougher than James and Paul ever were."

"At least we know Mark's well-looked after." It made Jason feel better, knowing Mark had a community around him.

"He's certainly not going to get 20 girls singing _Babe_ outside his window with someone like that looking out for him."

"I used to get _Could It Be Magic_."

"That was Robbie's song."

"Well it wasn't like I had my own song, was it?"

Jason thoroughly expected some prime Donald piss taking at that, but instead How gave him a sympathetic look. It was the look that did it, unleashed a flood of memories. The bad sort of memories, the ones he'd spent the last ten years trying to exorcise. The ones where he was told he wasn't good enough, wasn't talented enough, was only in the band through good luck and the indulgence of Nigel Martin Smith.

Locked in that storm of remembrance, he felt Howard's arm go around his shoulders, felt Howard's forehead against his own.

"You deserved your own lead, Jay," Howard whispered in his ear. "Anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar."

Another squeeze of his shoulders, and then Howard let him go and slipped into the car, leaving him standing on the pavement by himself.

"Pull yourself together, Orange," he whispered to himself. "You're here to help Mark, not have your own little breakdown." He shook out his arms, flipped his keys around his finger, and got in the car.

Armed with the right directions, it took less than ten minutes for them to find Mark's house. They turned down the lane Mark's protector had directed them to, and then before they knew it, Mark's house was looming in front of them, looking just like it had in the documentary. It was, Jason thought, exactly the sort of place he'd have expected Mark to fetch up, with an artfully overgrown garden and all sorts of small architectural flourishes on the house itself. Jason parked the car in front, and sat there for a minute until Howard gave his elbow a quick bump.

"You ready for this?" Howard asked. 

Jason turned to Howard and bit his lip, suddenly overwhelmed with doubt. Maybe they shouldn't have come. Maybe there was no need to tell Mark anything. Maybe Mark hadn't talked about Rob leaving in the documentary because he honestly didn't give a toss anymore. But then he thought about what Mark had been like, all those years ago, how utterly gutted he'd been, and he knew that this was the right thing to do, that they needed to warn Mark about what Rob now knew. Because if Rob took Mark unawares, Jason suspected it would be a blow he'd be hard pressed to recover from.

"Yeah." He straightened up and pulled the keys out of the ignition. "Let's go."

* * *

Mark heard the dog barking before he heard the car, its tyres crunching on the gravel lane.

"Calm down, Hootie," he said. "You'll scare our guests away." Not that he had a bleeding clue who was coming to call. His family were all busy with their lives, Jamie and Ben were stuck in London, and there was no one else who visited with any regularity. Hootie ignored him and ran for the door, whining and scratching at the wood. When the knock came at the door he had to grab Hootie's collar before he opened the door. He was so preoccupied with keeping the dog from bolting that he didn't realize who had knocked until they spoke.

"Hi Markie."

He let go of the dog's collar in surprise and looked up in time to see Hootie jump all over Jason while Howard watched, amused.

"Jason! Howard! How are you?" Surprise gave way to delight as he grabbed one then the other in an enthusiastic hug. "I didn't think I'd see either of you until next week at the premiere."

"Yeah, well, we were in the neighbourhood," Jason said. Mark saw the incredulous look Howard gave Jason at that, but chose to ignore it for the moment. "Thought we'd drop in." 

"Brilliant." Mark gave Jason another pat on the back and urged him and Howard into the house. "You're just in time for dinner. I've got nowt but leftover casserole, but it's a good casserole. Made it myself yesterday."

He installed the two of them in the kitchen while he made a salad and plunked the casserole in the cooker to heat up, then opened a bottle of wine he'd been saving for some unknown special occasion and poured three generous glasses.

"To the arrival of good friends," he said with a smile, surprised at exactly how pleased he was to see these two men.

"Cheers, Markie" said Howard.

" _Salut_ ," said Jason.

"Posh bastard," Howard said, and then they all started laughing.

The whole evening went like that, with laughter punctuating their stories as they all properly caught up with each other's lives. The documentary had brought them all in contact again, had started the process of repairing and deepening the friendships they'd had years ago, but Mark hadn't spent a night like this with any of them, a night of easy camaraderie and affection. Even the few days they'd spent at that hotel, vainly waiting for Rob to appear, they'd all been too conscious of the cameras to really enjoy themselves.

He let himself enjoy it, even though he knew, with absolute certainty, that there would be a sting in the tail of this evening. That the laughter he enjoyed now would be paid for with pain. Because there was no way that Howard and Jason had just been "in the neighbourhood," not with Howard living in Bournemouth and Jason mostly in London. And if it had been something easy, something uncomplicated that brought them to his door, they would have shared it with him immediately.

At midnight, they were all sprawled in the lounge when Jason set them all off yet again with the story of a misadventure at a hostel in Bali.

"So I can see in this girl's eyes that she knows who I am, or thinks she does. And I can't face talking about the old days, not when I just want to lie on a beach, so I decide to pretend I'm an Austrian medical student."

"Why Austrian?" Mark asked.

"Why a medical student?" was Howard's question.

"I'd met this bloke in Thailand, Konrad, who was going to medical school in Vienna. We'd talked a lot, and I'd reckoned I could fake the accent and the school stuff. And it worked, too. For the first day, anyway."

"What happened the second day?" Mark could see the sparkle in Howard's eyes as he asked the question, the knowledge that a spectacular cock-up was in the cards.

"This new bloke showed up in the hostel who hadn't been there before. He was dead quiet at first, but then when he heard me blathering on about Vienna he starting chattering away at me in German."

"No!" Mark squeaked.

"I thought my head was going to explode."

"What did you do?"

"I pretended I had food poisoning and ran to the loo. Hid in a stall until everyone had gone for the day, then checked out and moved on to the next town."

"Coward!" Howard shouted, and then they were all laughing until they were crying and Mark felt he wasn't going to breathe again.

When the laughter had faded, and they were all sitting there content, bellies full of good food and good wine, Mark finally felt he was brave enough, or perhaps just drunk enough, to ask the question he should have done hours ago.

"So, what really brought you two to my door?"

Howard tensed in his seat, and Jason sat up very straight, and Mark saw the two of them look at each other, suddenly looking very sober.

"Jason got a call." Howard looked at Jason, his gaze unflinching. "From Rob."

"Rob?" Mark's mind raced, trying to think of what Rob might have possibly said to Jason that would have brought both Jason and Howard 300 miles north.

"He'd just watched the documentary," Jason said, taking up the story. He licked his lips, something Mark remembered him doing when he was trying to answer a hard question. "He called me to ask..." He trailed off as if he wasn't sure how to go on, and looked back to Howard, a stricken look on his face.

"He wanted to know about what happened when he left," Howard said. "He wanted to know if you really hadn't thought about him that much."

Mark felt as if he'd just been split in two. He forced his body to remain still, to outwardly appear calm, even as his well-practice lie came back to devour him.

"What did you tell him?" Mark thought it was bizarre how steady his voice sounded as he struggled not to shatter.

"I told him the truth, Mark." Jason looked straight at him, all laughter gone from his eyes. 

"What truth?"

"What truth do you think?" Jason's voice rose slightly, and Howard reached over and put a hand lightly on his shoulder. Jason took a deep breath, and then continued. "That you'd been upset. That we'd been worried about you."

"Oh." Mark sat there, concentrating only on taking one breath after the other, on keeping his hands from shaking, on keeping the tears from his eyes.

"Did you really never tell him?" Jason asked, his eyes wide and his chest heaving.

"It never came up." An unbelievable truth, but the truth nonetheless. He'd always stayed in touch with Rob, but they'd never again been as close as they'd been in the band, and Mark had never told Rob how hurt he'd been by his leaving, how betrayed he'd been by the things Rob said afterwards, how guilty he'd felt that he hadn't stood up for Rob. How much he'd missed him and what they'd been to each other. How much he ached for the taste of him, the feel of him. So many things unsaid between them.

They all sat there in the lounge, staring at each other for the longest time before Jason finally broke the silence.

"Are you okay, Mark?"

"Yeah," he lied. Lying was easy, once you got the hang of it. "Yeah, I think I am. But I'm tired. I think I need to sleep."

"We'll go," Howard said, standing unsteadily. "Find a B&B."

"Don't be an idiot. It's late and you're both as drunk as I am. You'll stay here. I've got two spare rooms."

"If you're sure..." Jason trailed off, looking hesitant.

"I am." He nodded. "We'll have breakfast in the morning. It'll be nice."

Mark stood, and busied himself finding linens for the spare bedrooms and getting Howard and Jason settled. Keep busy and you don't have to worry about your heart breaking, he thought. Keep busy and you can ignore the part of yourself that just wants to scream.

"Good night," he finally said after he'd found toothbrushes for them both.

"Good night, Markie," Jason said, and gave him a hug that Howard joined in on. That was when it nearly happened, when he nearly shattered into a thousand pieces that could never be put together again. But he bit his lip and hugged them back and escaped to his room as soon as he could. And then he started carefully piecing his defences back together again so he could face his friends in the morning.

* * *

Howard woke up in the middle of the night with the beginnings of a hangover and a desperate need for a piss. He got out of bed, padded down to the loo, dealt with his business, drank a gallon of water straight from the tap, and downed two paracetamol he'd found in the medicine cabinet. Feeling slightly more human, he started back towards his bedroom, and noticed the light showing from under Jason's door.

"Silly bugger," he said to himself. Jason had never slept well, even back in the day, and judging by what he'd said in the documentary things had only got worse for him.

He tapped lightly on Jason's door, then poked his head in before there was an answer. Jason was sitting cross-legged on the bed in nowt but a vest and pants, reading some bloody thick novel he must have had buried in his messenger bag. He looked up at Howard, and even in the muted light from the nightstand lamp, Howard could see the dark circles under his eyes.

"Is it a page turner, that?" Howard nodded at the novel.

"Anna Karenina." Jason closed the book and waved it at Howard. "It's a bit depressing, to be honest. And I think I've read the same paragraph about twenty times over."

"Is that why you're sat here, reading it at whatever-the-fuck o'clock in the morning it is?"

"Couldn't sleep."

"That's still a problem?"

"That's always a problem, How." Jason sighed, stuck a bookmark in his current page, and tossed the bloody great thing onto the nightstand. "It doesn't help that I keep thinking about Mark. Wondering if I did the right thing telling Rob what I did. Wondering what's going on in Mark's head." He stretched his arms over his head and yawned. "At least he took the news about Rob well."

"Did he?" Howard frowned at him and sat on the bed. "I don't think he was quite as calm as he looked."

"Well, he seemed fine, and he was always crap at hiding his feelings," Jason said, then shifted over to give him more room.

"Ten years ago he was crap at hiding his feelings. He's gone through a lot in that time. Maybe he's a bit better at it now." Howard sprawled out beside Jason. "I think we should stay another day. Keep an eye on him for a bit."

"You do, do you? Are you going to be the one who tells Mark we'll be hanging about?"

"Thought I'd let you do that." Howard shot an unwavering look at Jay. "You were the one who got us into this mess, after all."

"Don't remind me." Jason flopped down beside Howard. "Not that I'm in shape for keeping an eye on anyone just now. I'm so flippin' tired."

"How long is it since you got a good night's sleep?"

"I slept for a few hours two nights ago."

"A _good_ night's sleep, Jay."

"Christ, I don't know, Dougie. Months, probably."

"Forget what's going on in Markie's head for the moment. What's going on in _your_ head?"

"I dunno."

Howard rolled onto his side and poked Jason in the ribs. Hard.

"Ow!" Jason rubbed at his side, an aggrieved look on his face. "What was that for?"

"That was for being a fucking liar." He propped his head up on his hand and looked sternly at Jason. "Back in the day you always knew what was going on in your head. And you were always willing to go on about it at length."

"Maybe I've changed in ten years, too."

"And maybe you're just a fucking liar." Howard moved a little closer to Jason and put one hand on his arm. "Seriously, Jay, what goes on in your head that you can't sleep?"

Jay looked up at the ceiling and shrugged, and Howard was _that_ close to giving him another poke when he began to speak.

"It's like I said in the documentary. I've got a little voice, a part of myself, willing me to fail. That...I don't know...doesn't think I'm worthy. That thinks I don't deserve what I have and I don't deserve a good night's sleep."

"That part of you is fucking stupid." He'd been told he lacked tact more than once, but Howard wasn't that bothered about it. Sometimes he just had to point out when someone was being an idiot.

"Thanks, How. That's a big help."

"Well, it is." Howard stared at Jason, as Jason most pointedly did not stare at him. And then he had an idea. "C'mere." He scooted closer to Jay and wrapped one arm around his chest, even as he spooned alongside him.

"What are you doing?" He could feel Jason tense in his arms.

"Trust me," Howard said. "I know what I'm doing."

"What _are_ you doing?"

"Grace was a horrible sleeper as a toddler." He spoke into the side of Jason's neck, with Jay's hair tickling his face. "She'd be up 'til all hours, fussing and thrashing, until I'd lie down with her, and hold her in my arms. But as soon as I did, she'd drop off straight away."

"Let me get this right." Jason twisted and stared at Howard incredulously. "You're suggesting you cuddle me like you did your two-year-old daughter in the hopes I'll get a bit of sleep?"

"Yeah." Howard refused to see how ridiculous his suggestion was.

"Why?"

"Why not?" was what he said. But there were so many other things that he could have said. _Because you're my friend. Because you deserve a good night's sleep. Because I love you. Because if I can't have you, at least I can hold you._ But he didn't say any of them because he was as much a fucking liar as he'd accused Jason of being.

Jason elbowed him in the rib and rolled his eyes.

"You're mental. You do know that, right?"

"Absolutely," Howard agreed.

"As long as we're clear on that." 

"You gonna keep talkin' or are you gonna turn out the light?"

He felt Jason reach out, and then the light snapped off, leaving him in the dark with Jason Orange in his arms. He wasn't sure how long they stayed like that, with Jason tense and him willing the silly git to relax, but he was almost about to give it up as a bad idea when Jason gave a deep sigh. At that moment, as he felt that long body relax, felt the tension in his muscles finally ease, Howard knew his instincts had been absolutely right. He smiled as he heard Jay's breathing deepen, as he sensed the moment when he finally drifted into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Howard squirmed to find a more comfortable position, one that wouldn't wake Jason, one that wouldn't make his arm fall asleep, and one that wouldn't lead to an inconvenient hard-on. This wasn't about sex. Well, it wasn't _just_ about sex, because he had to admit that the thought of shagging Jason was anything but a hardship. In fact it was pretty fucking hot if he was being honest. But Jason meant more to him than a simple shag. And if he was facing facts, he had a pretty fucking awful record when it came to not fucking up relationships. 

But maybe he wouldn't fuck things up with Jason. Maybe, his own little voice told him, Jason was exactly who he should be with.

Whatever the right thing was to do, he wasn't going to figure it out right now. Not as tired as he was, with a hangover waiting to appear over the horizon. For now, what he needed most was the same thing Jason needed: sleep.

He shifted one more time, tightened his hold on Jason, and dropped a soft kiss onto Jason's shoulder.

"Good night, you beautiful bastard," he whispered, as Jason slept on.

* * *

Mark was lying awake, trying to sort out the emotions twisting in his gut, when he heard the footsteps in the hall, heard water running in the loo, heard the quiet knock on Jason's door, heard Howard and Jason talking softly together, their words muted and indistinct through the walls of his house. He'd have liked nothing more than to join them, to share all the messy, contradictory feelings he had about Rob, but instead he just bit the inside of his cheek and pulled the covers around him more tightly.

He hadn't always felt like this. Fifteen years ago, there would have been no question about him joining them. Back then, they'd all congregate together after a show, in Jason's room, or Mark's, talking and laughing, sharing their hopes and dreams and fears until they were too tired to talk or laugh anymore and they'd stumble back to their own rooms and collapse. As awful as things had sometimes been, those times had made it all worthwhile.

But those gatherings had stopped happening when Rob had left. They'd all been nursing their own unique hurts over Rob's departure, hurts that had driven them apart rather than together. On that final tour, they would each hide in their own room after a show rather than gather together, and they'd all stopped sharing anything remotely personal. For Mark, that meant he'd never told any of the boys how deeply Rob had hurt him. They obviously knew—he hadn't exactly been subtle about the way he'd fallen apart after Rob left, and Jason and Howard wouldn't be here if they didn't know he and Rob had been more than good friends—but the boys had never asked about the details and he hadn't told them.

He'd regretted that at the time, and he regretted it now. It would have been a relief to have shared it all with the only people who could have really understood what Rob had meant to him, and how much Rob had broken his heart.

_But it's not too late_ , a traitorous voice whispered in his ear. _You could get up now, knock on Jason's door, and let them know exactly how raw those wounds still are, how much the thought of Rob calling Jason scares you. Let them look after you now like they used to back then._ It would be so easy, and yet so hard.

He got as far as sitting up in bed, knees up, arms wrapped around his shins. But his fear stopped him cold. Fear of being little Markie that everyone had to look after. Fear of hearing some home truths that even now he suspected he wasn't ready to listen to.

But fear wasn't the only thing stopping him. He'd seen Howard looking at Jason just like he'd always looked at Jason, and that reminded him of how much unresolved history the two of them shared. If he and Rob had been messily obvious, if never entirely open, in the way they'd fucked around back in the day, then Howard and Jay had been just as obvious in the way they'd fancied each other rotten and never done a bleeding thing about it. Maybe, Mark thought, if he left them alone, they'd finally sort themselves out. Maybe they'd finally get the happy ending they deserved.

Or maybe happy endings only happened in storybooks, and even then you never really found out what happened to the prince after he got his princess. Or his prince.

He shifted onto his side, squeezed his eyes tightly shut, and willed himself to fall asleep.

* * *

For once, Jason woke up long after the sun had risen, with an ill-timed erection and Howard wrapped around him like a limpet. He held very still and concentrated on his breathing, willing his cock to behave itself before Howard woke up and he had to face the inevitable teasing and humiliation that would follow.

It wasn't that he didn't fancy Howard. He did. He always had. But he'd never let himself follow through on that longing, beyond the brotherly kissing and cuddling they'd all done. At first it had only seemed to make sense. He worked with Howard, and young though he was, he knew it wasn't smart to get involved with someone you worked with. Then, as he'd watched the explosive and then catastrophic collision of Mark and Rob, not getting involved with Howard had seemed a necessity. He didn't want to end up like Mark, heart-broken when Howard inevitably decided he liked birds better after all and moved on.

He was startled from his thoughts when the man surrounding him began to stir. Howard shifted and stretched like a scruffy dog waking up in front of the fire, his face buried in Jason's chest. 

Jason saw it, the precise moment that Howard realized that a certain part of Jason's anatomy was more awake than others. Howard's shoulders froze in the act of pushing himself up, his face turned slightly away, so Jason couldn't judge his mood, couldn't tell if he was due for teasing or a bollocking. His heart drummed a staccato beat in his chest, and he felt his mouth go dry, but astoundingly, annoyingly, the knowledge that he'd been discovered made his cock harder than ever.

Then Howard finally looked up at him, his expression a wolfish grin.

"Is that for me?" Howard asked.

Teasing it was. He could deal with teasing.

"Don't flatter yourself," Jason said, trying to recover a bit of his dignity. "Was just having a lovely dream."

"About who?" Howard challenged.

"Cindy Crawford." Jason grabbed the name of How's biggest celebrity crush back in the day. Perhaps the distraction would be enough.

"Hey, she was mine."

"In _your_ dreams."

"Thought we were talking about one of _your_ dreams." Howard pushed himself completely up and reclined on one elbow, his face inches from Jason's.

It was then that Jason realized something: Howard hadn't really teased him. He wasn't acting offended or angry either. And he hadn't pulled away. In fact he'd moved even closer to Jason that he'd started out. And that made Jason realize something else. 

He wasn't afraid.

The fear he'd always felt when it came to confessing his desires to Howard, all the niggling dread and outright terror, had fled his mind and he was left with an almost alien sense of calm. A calm that left him free to finally do what he wanted. So he did. He leaned in and kissed Howard. Really kissed him. Not one of their usual joking pecks or even one of the brotherly kisses he'd shared with all of the boys, but a right and proper snog.

And Howard didn't pull away. No, Howard kissed him back. Enthusiastically. Eyes closed, he reveled in the warmth of Howard's mouth, in the feel of his hand tracing Jason's back. It was as good as he'd ever thought it would be. Better, even. He let his own hand play up Howard's neck, let it drift into his curly hair, gasping as Howard bit ever so lightly at his lip, at his chin.

Finally, he had to pull back or be overwhelmed completely. Breathing hard, he opened his eyes and found Howard staring back at him in admiring awe.

"Why didn't you ever do that before?" Howard asked, his blue eyes wide.

"Why didn't _you_?" Better to turn the question around than admit how afraid he'd been.

"Never made sense, did it? Not with Nigel and the paps breathing down our necks all the time." Howard leaned in and gave him another deep kiss. "Don't have to worry about any of that now, though, do we?"

"No," Jason whispered, trying to sort all this out as his skin, his lips, his very erect cock were all screaming for him to get on with it. And he nearly did it. Nearly listened only to his body, not his fearful mind, and shagged Howard right here in Mark's spare bedroom. Or perhaps he would have let Howard shag him. He'd never know, because there was a knock at the door.

"Wake up call for Mr Orange." Mark's voice was cheery. He didn't sound at all like someone who needed looking after, and less like someone who knew what was going on on the other side of his spare bedroom door. "I'll have breakfast ready in five minutes."

"Thanks, Mark," Jason squeaked out as Howard buried his face in his shoulder. "Be down in a minute."

"Great. I'll just go wake Howard."

Jason nearly hit the man in question as Howard started giggling, his stuttering breath tickling Jason's collarbone.

"No need," he said quickly. "I'll go get him now."

There was a pause before Mark responded with a simple and overly long "Okay." Jason didn't like the sound of that "okay." He thought it sounded far too much like the sound of Mark Owen twigging to the truth. Which thought was confirmed with Mark's next words.

"Is Howard in there with you?"

"No!" Jason shouted, even as Howard, the traitor, said "Yes!"

"Okay," Mark said, his voice cheery once again. "I'll see you both downstairs."

At least Howard had the grace to wait until they heard Mark on the stairs before he burst out laughing.

"You're no help," Jason said, rolling away from Howard, every last bit of arousal he felt having fled.

"C'mon, Jay, you must admit it's funny."

"Nowt funny about it." He stared at the ceiling, wishing, just a bit, that the bed would swallow him and spare him the mortification he was currently feeling. "He'll think we're—" His fear was rushing back and he could do nothing but choke on the word.

"Fucking?" Howard helpfully supplied.

"And we're not." Jason's voice went up into a squeak.

"But do you want to?" Howard's voice was entirely matter-of-fact, as if he wasn't talking about a monumental change in both their lives. Jason rolled onto his side, expecting to see Howard grinning, setting him up for a massive piss take. But instead, Howard's expression was curious. Serious, even. It made Jason stop for a moment, made him put aside his panic and really think about the question. With his brain, not his cock.

"Yeah." He licked his lips. "Yeah, I do."

"That's alright, then, because so do I." Howard wriggled close to him and gave him a quick, sloppy kiss on the side of his mouth.

"But what about Mark?" Jason's fear rose up in another crest, threatening to swamp him once again.

"Cute as he is, I don't want to fuck Mark."

"No, you idiot." Jason gave him a swat. "I mean what about him knowing."

"What about it?" Howard was infuriatingly calm. He put a hand on Jason's chest, right over his rapidly beating heart. "It's _Markie_. It's not like he's going to shop us to the tabloids. Besides, it's only fair. We knew about him and Rob."

"Don't sound so bloody reasonable."

"You know I'm right." Howard grinned and gave his chest a gentle pat. "You can lie there and ponder for a while. I'm going to put some clothes on and have breakfast." Howard gave him a wink and then was up and out the door.

Infuriating sod.

Not that he was wrong.

What did it really matter if Mark knew they'd ended up in bed together? If he thought they were fucking? It was nearly true. Christ, how he wanted it to be true.

If only Howard wasn't quite so imperturbable about something that seemed to Jason to be so earth shattering. 

He sighed, stretched, and stood, then pulled on yesterday's clothes and headed downstairs to face Mark's curiosity, Howard's provocations, and breakfast, not necessarily in that order.

* * *

They were lost.

They shouldn't have been. Jim had assured Rob he knew where he was going, where Mark's house was. Jim was the driver Josie had hired, a bloke from Moss Side that Rob liked because he was friendly and because he drove carefully, with none of the desire to impress that lead so many other drivers to take corners like the Stig. Rob might have liked taking chances with his career and jumping off the occasional roof, but he was a nervous passenger at the best of times and he prized cautious drivers.

But careful or not, Jim was clearly lost. They'd circled through this same village once before, maybe twice, and still they'd found no sign of the lane Jim had said would take them to Mark's house.

"Pull over here," Rob said as they drew near the village post office. "They should know where Mark is. I can ask them for directions."

"I'm sorry, Rob," Jim said. They had very quickly reached the point where Jim stopped calling him "sir" and started calling him Rob. "I thought I knew where it was."

"No problem, son." Rob hopped out of the car and stuck his head back through the window. "I'll find out where Mark is and we'll be there soon." Rob hoped he was right because it was getting late. The sun was just about to sink below the horizon, and the jet lag was beginning to hit him, dragging at his limbs like the current in the ocean the one time he had been foolish enough to swim at a beach known for its riptide.

He pushed open the door of the post office. It was less touristy than you'd find nearer Windermere, with more tins of beans and fewer postcards. There was a woman behind the counter at the back, and she looked up as he walked in.

"Oh, bleeding hell, it's another one."

Rob froze and stood staring at the postmistress, a bluff-looking woman of about his mum's age, and tried to figure out what he'd done to deserve such a bizarre reaction.

"Excuse me?" He tried to be polite. After all, he was always polite to women who were his mum's age.

"You are Robbie Williams, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

"And you're looking for Mark Owen's house?"

"Yeah," Rob said, feeling as if he'd dropped down a rabbit hole. First Josie had read his mind, and now she seemed to have passed that ability onto this Lake District postmistress. He suddenly wished Jim's directions had been better, or that he'd paid more attention the last time he'd talked to Mark, and Mark had told him where he lived by way of issuing a half-hearted invitation they both knew would never be acted upon. Mind you, his memory of Mark's directions hadn't been promising, full of "look for the crooked tree and turn right" sorts of bollocks.

"Is it a reunion, then?"

"Excuse me?" He was repeating himself, he knew that, but fuck, this was too weird.

"First those other two turn up, now you. I reckon it must be a reunion."

"Other two?" Now he was even more confused.

"You know, the dancers. The ones that weren't Gary Barlow."

"Howard and Jason?" he tried. 

"Yeah, those two. They were here yesterday, looking as lost as you. Don't any of you know how to read a map?"

"I'm afraid not." Rob resisted the urge to ask the woman what the fuck Howard Donald and Jason Orange had been doing in her post office looking for Mark's house. "And Mark's crap at giving out good directions."

"That sounds like Mark." Her expression visibly softened. "A lovely boy, but doesn't always have his feet on the ground, if you know what I mean."

Rob was tired and stressed and unsure of the welcome he was going to receive from Mark, but he had to smile at that. All was right with the world if Mark was still being called a lovely boy by random people he encountered. He took this as a good omen, a sign that this mad quest of his might just end well after all.

"Could I get the directions?" 

"I might as well give them to you. I've already given them to those others." She pulled out a map and a piece of paper, showed him where he'd gone wrong and which lane would take him to Mark's house. And as he left, she offered him one parting shot. "You tell Barlow that if he shows up wanting directions, I'm charging him a tenner."

He was tempted to offer the woman a hundred quid if she'd tell Gaz to bugger off, but restrained himself.

He passed on the directions to Jim, then he sat back in his seat and let the stunning scenery of the Lake district pass by unregarded as he wondered yet again what the fuck he was doing.

He had to see Mark. He felt that deep in his gut, but his gut wasn't telling what he needed to do once he saw him. Was he going to apologize? Was he going to explain his reasons for leaving rather than fighting to stay? Was he going to tell Mark what he'd really felt for him? What he felt for him now? Did he even know what he felt for him now?

He thought of the best time he'd shared with Mark in the last few years, that performance at Knebworth. It had felt so good being onstage with him again, almost like the previous eight years had never happened. The smile on Markie's face...it had reminded Rob of the best times in Take That, when they were just starting out, and had fuck all money. When he'd shared hotel rooms, and beds, with Mark most nights. When they'd been young and horny and sex had been just one more way of showing how much they meant to each other. Before the bad stuff had happened. Before the drugs had become a problem, and before he'd really started hating Nige and Gaz. Before he'd felt trapped by this Robbie Williams creature Nigel had turned him into.

The car began to slow, and Jim looked over his shoulder.

"We're here, Rob." 

And there it was: Mark Owen's house, with Mark's Range Rover and a Mercedes convertible Rob recognized as Jason's parked in front. Jim pulled his car in beside the Mercedes and turned off the engine.

Rob sat frozen in the back seat for the better part of a minute, debating whether he should just tell Jim to turn around and take him back to Stoke. He could spend a few days with his mum, then piss off back to L.A. with no one the wiser.

But that didn't sit well with him. He'd flown to England because there were things he needed to put right with Mark. If he drove away now, he knew he'd never find the courage to do this again, knew that the damage of Take That would constantly fester in his mind, would form a barrier to him and Mark ever truly repairing their friendship, ever getting back to what they'd had before. And he was starting to realize that he very much wanted them to get back what they'd had before. _All_ of it.

He blinked and looked over at Jason's car. The presence of Jason and Howard was one complication he hadn't even considered when he'd been sitting in the first class lounge at L.A.X. Worse, he had no doubt that it was his call to Jason that had prompted their trip. That they'd come to...warn Mark? To let him know he might hear from Rob? To offer him some support? To look after him?

Whatever their intentions, Rob wasn't sure he could say what he had to with them around. They all knew too much about each other.

"Rob?" He blinked and turned to find Jim looking at him, a concerned expression on his face. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Well, if he wasn't sure he wanted Howard and Jason here, he was bloody sure he didn't want Jim. He reached into his pocket and pulled a sizable portion of the money Josie had given him out of his wallet. "Listen, I'm probably going to be here a day or two. Why don't you find yourself a nice hotel. Order some room service, put your feet up and wait for my call?"

Jim took the money gingerly, as if he was afraid it might burn.

"If you're sure, Rob."

Rob was anything but sure, but he nodded firmly. He'd had a lifetime's practice at pretending to be more confident than he was.

"Absolutely sure."

"I can wait until you know your friend is home."

"No need. Look, his car's right there." Rob pointed at the Range Rover. "The lights are on. If there's no one inside I'm sure they'll be back soon." He opened the door and put a foot on the gravel drive.

"Here's my card." Jim reached forward and gave him the flimsy pasteboard rectangle. "It's got my mobile and the office number. Call if you need anything."

"I will, son. Now, off you go."

Rob slammed the car door closed, then waited until the taillights of Jim's car disappeared down the lane. Only then, with his safety net completely gone, did he walk to the house.

He heard a dog barking inside, and voices. Taking a deep breath, he raised his fist and knocked on the door.

* * *

It had been an unexpectedly brilliant day. There'd been the whole waking up without the expected hangover and with Jason at the beginning, which had put him in the best mood from the start. Snogging Jason had been brilliant, and he couldn't wait to snog him again. Couldn't wait to do all sorts of indecent things with him, actually. Even being found out by Mark hadn't put a damper on his feelings. In fact it seemed to have spurred them on. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb his dad had always said.

Then he'd gone downstairs and Mark had given him a look, then cooked them all a lovely breakfast. While they were eating, Jason had stuttered and stammered over telling Mark they thought they'd stay another day. "Be a nice break," Howard had added, the lie that was also the truth giving them a plausible reason for staying beyond keeping an eye on Mark. "Be nice to catch up a bit more."

And they had caught up, and laughed, and taken Hootie for a walk in the country. They'd gone for lunch at a nice little tea room Mark knew, and then taken a hike to the next village and stopped in a local grocery to get some food in. All the while, Howard had been watching Mark, who had either become very good at hiding his feelings or was in fact doing fine, and Jason, who was smiling as much at Howard as Howard was smiling at him.

Now they were settled in Mark's lounge, having a rest and a glass of wine before Howard and Jason starting cooking the curry they'd promised Mark for dinner.

Mark was sprawled across a big wing-backed chair, his legs flung over one arm, one hand reaching down to scratch Hootie's head. Howard and Jason had taken over the sofa, with Howard slouched at one end, and Jason stretched out on its length, his feet in Howard's lap. Howard was rubbing Jason's feet, doing his best to make it look absent-minded, but actually paying close attention to Jason's reactions, to what made him ticklish and what made his head tilt back in pleasure.

They were all tired and content and happy to be in each other's company, and having a more open conversation than they'd ever allowed themselves before, talking about Mark's struggling solo career, Howard's joy at his DJing career, and Jason's failure to have any sort of career whatsoever.

"What's it like, being a dad?" Mark asked him.

"Brilliant!" That was one thing he never doubted. His girls might have made his life more complicated, but he'd known from the start how much he loved them. "Wish I could see them a bit more, but it's always a bit complicated, what with not being with their mums. I'm not sure I'm always the best dad, but I try."

"I'm sure you're a brilliant dad, How." Jason poked Howard's belly with his big toe and gave him a quick smile that caused a lovely glow deep in Howard's belly.

Then he noticed Hootie's ears prick up, just as he thought he heard the sound of a car. He sat up himself, senses suddenly on the alert.

"You expecting anyone, Mark?"

"No." Mark took a swallow of wine and set down his glass. "Why?"

"Thought I heard something." He looked to Jason, but Jay only shrugged, and even Hootie settled quickly down. "Must be imagining things." He grabbed Jason's big toe and shook it gently. "When should we start the cooking?"

But then he heard the bang of a car door and what was definitely an engine, and he wasn't the only one. Mark sat up suddenly, Jason's shoulders stiffened, and Hootie started barking like a mad thing.

"Calm down, boy," Mark said as he grabbed Hootie's collar and patted his side. Mark just about had the dog settled when there was a knock on the door. Mark jumped, and Howard flinched in sympathy

"I'll get it," Howard said, wanting to protect Mark from whoever his mysterious visitor was.

"No, it's alright." Mark jumped to his feet and patted the side of his leg for Hootie to follow. "C'mon, boy."

Howard heard the door open, Hootie's frantic whining, and the Mark's voice saying a single word. A single name.

"Rob."

Howard was standing before he'd really registered the name, before he heard Rob reply, but Jason moved even quicker and grabbed his hand, held him fast.

"Don't," Jason said. "It's okay."

"But—"

"I know you want to look after him, How, but I think Mark can handle Rob on his own. I think he _needs_ to."

Every instinct told Howard that he should go to Mark, make sure he was okay, but he could see the sense of what Jason was saying. So he took a deep breath and sat back down and let Jason enfold him in his arms.

* * *

"Rob."

Mark used to have a dream that started like this. He'd open the door of his house and Rob would be standing there with a big grin on his face. In the dream, Rob would hug him and lift him and spin him around until they were both dizzy. Then they would kiss and kiss until he woke up. Sometimes he'd wake up smiling from the dream, sometimes sobbing, but whichever it was, there was always a mixture of happiness and hurt associated with it.

The reality was somewhat different. Hootie had never been in his dream for a start, whining and looking from Mark to Rob and back again. Rob was smiling, but it wasn't the infectious grin of his dream. It was a tentative smile, one unsure of its welcome. And he didn't hug Mark. Not right away. Not until Mark finally moved forward to wrap his arms around Rob. Even then, the hug was cautious, faltering. There was no lifting, no spinning, no kissing. And the hurt outweighed the happiness by far. Mark was honestly not sure whether to laugh or cry, so he simply smiled himself. He couldn't see his own smile, but he suspected it was as weak a thing as Rob's.

"Hey, Markie."

"What are you doing here?"

"Nice to see you, too." It was a joke, but Mark could see the hurt in Rob's eyes. 

"Oh, Rob, it's nice to see you. You know that. But I thought you were in L.A.?"

"I was. But I wanted to come home for a bit." Rob paused and looked around Mark inside the house. "Listen, can I come in?"

"God, of course." Mark moved out of the way and waved Rob into the hall, steering them into the dining room, not the lounge where Howard and Jason waited. He wanted Rob to himself, if only for a few minutes.

"Are Dougie and Jay here?" Rob asked as he leaned against the table.

"Yeah, they're just in the lounge. We were having a visit."

There was a long silence as Rob looked at him as his smile faded away to nothing.

"Did Jay tell you I called him?"

Mark found his throat had closed up, so he nodded in response.

"Did he tell you what I asked him?"

Mark nodded again.

There was a long pause during which neither of them said anything. During which Mark watched the tears welling up in Rob's eyes, during which he watched his lower lip tremble. Mark clenched his teeth and tried to keep his own defences up.

"Why, Markie?" Rob finally gasped out.

"Why what?" The words emerged from his lips as a muted croak.

"Why everything?" was Rob's singularly unhelpful response. But all the response he was likely to get as tears began to flow down Rob's face.

He took in a deep breath and tried to hold back his own tears. Because _this_ , this gouging pain in his chest was exactly what he'd been trying to avoid, why he'd lied on the documentary. He didn't want to resurrect all the shit from that time. He wanted to let it go. But he realized in a flash that letting go was impossible. This pain was as deeply ingrained in who he was as his DNA. This hurt would always be part of him.

That didn't make it any easier to live with, though. It didn't make the hurt less.

"Rob…" He started to try and explain it all, explain everything, but then he felt the last piece of his armour rust into powder, felt the last brick in the fortress protecting him crumble into dirt. "Fuck."

He nearly threw up. Before that could happen, he ran from the room, Hootie barking at his heels. He grabbed his jacket and his keys from the front hall, made sure the dog was in the house, slammed the door behind him, and was driving the Range Rover down the lane as fast as he could manage before he knew it.

Maybe Rob would be gone before he got back, and then he could avoid this hurt for another few years. Maybe they'd all leave him alone. 

Or maybe he'd find out that you could really die from a broken heart.

* * *

Howard listened to it all with Jason's arm tight around his shoulder. All of it. The words, the pauses, the sobs, the footsteps, the slammed door, the accelerating car. Sat there for a few more seconds after the sound of Mark's Rover had faded into the distance, until the only thing they could hear was Rob's laboured breathing and sniffed back tears.

Howard was the one who moved first, dragging Jason into the dining room with him to find Rob clutching the edge of the table with one hand, swaying on his feet, and looking out the window in the direction Mark had vanished in.

"Rob?" he asked.

Rob turned to him and Howard could see the desperate effort it was taking for him to keep it together. 

"One of you needs to go get Mark," Rob said, his voice shaky. "Make sure he's okay."

Howard hadn't seen Rob for years, but he'd assumed he was the same selfish, self-centred, clueless kid he'd always been. But that kid's first concern wouldn't have been Markie. That kid had bruised Markie's heart over and over until he'd finally broken it. Maybe that kid had finally grown up.

"I'll go," Jason said, and much as Howard wanted to do it, to find Mark and make sure he was alright, that he hadn't broken completely, he knew Jay was the right person for this job. Because someone needed to stay with Rob, and that someone was _not_ Jason. Jason may have been the one Rob called, but there was still too much history, too many hard feelings between them for Jason to take care of Rob properly.

So Howard put an arm around Rob and nodded at Jason.

"You going to be alright?" Jay asked, his eyes wide and panicked.

Howard nodded again, and Jason ran out of the room. Howard heard him slam the front door, heard him rev up the Mercedes and drive down the lane. Then he turned his attention back to Rob.

He felt Rob trembling against him. His face was wet, and his green eyes were filled with grief. Howard knew there was no way he was shifting Rob if he lost it—Rob had an inch on him now, and more than a few pounds--so he put an arm around his waist and steered him towards the lounge and the sofa. Then he sat him on the sofa, and crouched down in front of him, one hand on his knee.

Howard stayed like that for several long minutes, struggling to find something to say that wouldn't sound fucking stupid. _It's going to be okay_ , was nowhere near adequate in this case, because if anyone knew that sometimes things _weren't_ okay, it was him and Rob. He settled for something more within their control.

"Jay will find him." He patted Rob's knee. "He'll make sure he's safe."

"I fucking hope so," Rob said. "I'll never forgive myself if he isn't."

Howard wasn't sure he'd forgive Rob either, but _that_ he kept to himself.

* * *

Mark had a minute or two start on him, but Jason still quickly caught up. Even distraught, Mark was a careful driver, and the roads were so deserted that Jason had easily seen his taillights in the distance on the main road. He didn't do anything else, though, didn't try to overtake him or honk to get his attention. It would be just his luck to startle Mark and have him drive into a ditch. No, he just stayed a comfortable distance behind and followed him.

Mark drove through the countryside as the muted light of dusk faded and turned to night, the only light that of Mark's taillights and the occasional house or cottage they passed. Then the houses became more frequent and Jason realized they were entering the edges of Windermere itself. Mark drove towards the lake, finally pulling off to the side of the road just past a few darkened restaurants. 

Jason pulled over just behind Mark, then stopped the car, removed the keys from the ignition, and got out. He found an outcropping of rock to sit on that gave him a view of Mark—close, but not too close—and settle himself in to wait. 

Mark had turned off the Rover and was sitting without moving inside. In the sparse light thrown by the houses down the street, he was nothing more than a shadowy silhouette, sitting with his head bowed over the steering wheel.

Jason considered what to do, whether to act as a silent guardian angel, making sure Mark didn't do anything stupid, or whether to take an active role. But when he saw Mark's shoulders begin to shake, he knew he could remain on the sidelines no longer.

He stood and carefully walked over to Mark's car, approaching from the passenger side. When Mark seemed not to notice him, he knocked quietly on the window.

* * *

Mark hadn't the slightest idea how he'd ended up parked at the water's edge, overlooking Belle Isle, but he supposed he must have driven here. He was in his Rover, after all, and he remembered grabbing the keys and running from his house, running from Rob. But after that it was a blur. 

In the darkness, the island was an indistinct smudge in the distance, the waters of the lake marked only by the occasional glimmer of reflected light, glimmers that turned into sparkling jewels as he felt his face grow wet.

His shoulders began to shake, and he felt sobs hitching in his chest, even as he tried to stop them. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and fought for control, only to be startled by a soft knock on the window.

"Fuck." The absolute last thing he needed was for a well-meaning copper to ask what he was doing weeping in his car after dark.

He opened his eyes, turned his head, and found not the expected police officer, but Jason, standing in the darkness. 

For brief second he considered driving away, bolting and leaving Jason standing at the side of the road. But he knew that would mean Jason would follow him again, would end up standing beside his car again, and then he'd be back at this moment, facing his friend.

He dragged one hand across his eyes, then leaned over and unlocked the passenger door. Jason opened the door and slipped into the car, his movements as smooth and graceful as they'd always been. He closed the door behind him with a muted thud, and then it was just the two of them sitting in the darkened car, the silence broken only by their breathing and the occasional car driving past.

Jason was the first one to speak.

"I'm not going to be daft and ask if you're alright, so you can stop worrying about that."

Mark nearly laughed, which he supposed was the point. Nearly, but not quite.

"Always said you were the smartest of all of us," Mark said, taking comfort in that brief moment of humour before another swell of grief rose up and swamped him.

"I try." Jason reached over and rubbed his back, a comforting feeling that brought to mind the way his mum had treated him when he'd been sick. "Do you know why you ran?"

Mark felt a cold shock run down his arms, and he almost wished Jason _had_ asked if he was alright. It would have been an easier question to answer. But Jason's question, he knew in his bones, was the more important one and he struggled to find an answer.

"It hurts, Jay." He pushed the heel of his hand into his breastbone, as if he could force down all the pain that was welling up from his gut. "I don't want to hurt like this anymore. I just don't."

"Is that why you lied? In the documentary?"

"Yeah." The word was a whisper, a breath of air that barely passed his lips, but somehow Jason still heard it. "I reckoned if I didn't talk about it, I wouldn't feel any of... _this_."

"We all hurt, Mark. We're all afraid." Jason moved his hand up onto Mark's shoulder, and Mark tried his best not to flinch under the touch. Tried, and failed, but Jason didn't pull back, just gave his shoulder a squeeze and maintained the contact. "The trick is not letting yourself be ruled by the hurt, by the fear. That's what fucked us up before. The fear. That's what Nigel used to control us. All of us."

"But you're not afraid." He turned to face Jason, looking so calm and confident beside him.

"'Course I am." Jason laughed, a sound with no humour in it. "I'm flipping terrified. All the flipping time."

"How do you live with it?"

"Take a deep breath and take each moment as it comes." He smiled then, an expression full of warmth and tenderness. "And sometimes the moment brings you what you need."

As wrapped up as he was in his own misery, Jason's smile kindled a spark of pleasure inside Mark.

"A moment finally brought you Howard, hey?"

"Thought we were talking about your problems, not mine."

"Your problems seem easier."

"Easier, maybe. But not easy."

"Nothing's ever easy, is it?" Mark sighed, then asked what he really wanted to know. "Did you fuck him?"

"Mark!" He didn't think he'd ever seen Jason look so shocked. "You've got a mouth like Rob sometimes."

"You did then."

"No!"

"You didn't?"

"No!" Jason stopped, took a breath, and then gave Mark a half smile. "Some numpty knocked on our door before we could do anything."

"Sorry." He took a breath. "But you're going to?"

"Mark!"

"Sorry. It's just easier to think about someone else's issues."

"Is Howard my issue?"

"Is he?"

"Mark!"

He was beginning to see why Rob had always loved winding up Jason all those years ago. It was far too easy and far too much fun.

Rob. 

Shit.

The brief flash of pleasure slipped away from him, and he took in a gulping swallow of air. Jason didn't content himself with a hand on his shoulder this time, but leaned in and wrapped both arms tightly around him.

"Breathe, Mark. Just breathe."

He breathed, then again, and again, until finally the sobbing gasps eased and he could at last relax, lean into Jason's side.

Jason held him, one hand rubbing his arm comfortingly, and then he spoke.

"What do you want, Mark?"

"Not a matter of what I want, is it? It's up to Rob. It always has been."

"If it wasn't up to Rob, what would you want? The truth, now."

The truth. Mark wasn't sure how long it had been since he'd told himself the truth when it came to Rob. He'd always been pathetically grateful for whatever crumbs of friendship Rob was willing to grant him, whatever hints of the love they'd shared he was willing to expose. But what _did_ he want for himself?

"I want what we had." He stopped to drag the back of his hand across his nose with a sniff, then continued, stronger this time. "I want to be able to hold him and kiss him whenever I want." He flashed a more-than-slightly-naughty smile at Jason. "I want to fuck him. Or him to fuck me." But then the smile faded. "But it's still up to Rob."

"It's up to both of you, you idiot." Jason gave him a light cuff on the arm. "And think about it. If Rob didn't want more than a passing friendship, do you think he'd have flown all the way out from fleshpots of L.A. to the wilds of the Lake District?"

"Oh." He'd been so upset, he hadn't thought through the implications of Rob's visit.

"So smarten yourself up, turn the car around and get back to your house. And then you tell Rob what you've just told me."

"Alright, then." Mark nodded. "Let's go."

* * *

"I fucked up." Rob sat on the sofa, head in his hands, staring at the floor. He kept seeing the look of Mark's face right before he ran out of the room. He'd never seen Mark that gutted, and it hurt, knowing he was the one that brought him to that.

"We've all fucked up, Rob." Howard put a cup of tea in his hands and then sat down beside him with his own cuppa. "Just makes you one of us."

"But you never hurt Markie." That seemed to worst thing in the world to Rob, knowing how much he'd hurt Mark.

"I probably have done. I think we all hurt each other, there at the end." Howard took a sip of his own tea and then looked at him calmly. "We were kids," he said with a shrug.

"What am I going to do?" he asked his teacup. It seemed as unlikely to produce answers as he felt just at the moment.

"Why did you come, Rob?" Howard gave his foot a little kick.

"I don't know."

Howard gave him another kick as he asked another question.

"What do you want?"

"I don't know." 

"C'mon, Rob. Even you aren't that clueless." 

"I don't fucking know. Okay?" He took a heaving breath, made an effort to calm down. "I just knew I had to see Mark."

"That's a start at least." Howard took a sip of tea and then looked at him. His eyes seemed especially blue in the light of the lounge, seemed to bore straight into Rob's head. "Why did you want to see him?"

"Don't know."

"C'mon, Rob, don't be a fuckin' liar. You may be taller than me now, but I can still batter ya."

Rob wasn't sure that was entirely true, not anymore, but he'd rather not test the theory. 

"Because I missed him." It wasn't the whole truth, but it wasn't a lie. Howard, however, wasn't convinced.

"You can do better than that."

"Fuck off, Dougie," he barked.

"You watched the documentary, and called Jay, and then came all the way here from L.A. because you missed Mark? Not good enough."

Something in Rob snapped then. Because he knew Howard wasn't going to let it go. He was going to keep after him until Rob told him the truth. So he thought, yeah, why not give him all the truth.

"Because it hurt when he said he hadn't thought about me. Then it hurt worse when Jay told me how bad he'd been when I left. Because I want to know why he sided with you lot against me. Because seeing him a couple of times a year at charity football matches isn't enough anymore. Because I _do_ miss him, more than I can say. Because I fucking want him more than I've ever wanted anyone." Somewhere along the line, he'd put down his teacup and was standing over Howard, breathing hard, his hands clenched into tight fists. "That enough truth for you, How?" 

"Yeah, that's enough." Howard looked up at him and took another sip of tea. That pissed Rob off so much, How being so calm when he'd just spilled his guts to him, that he nearly grabbed his fucking tea cup and smashed it against the wall. But he didn't, and Howard finally looked evenly up at him. "Now, tell Mark."

"Tell him what?"

"All of that." 

"I can't."

"Then it's going to keep on hurting both of you."

"I don't want to hurt Mark."

"Then tell him."

"You're a fucking pain in the arse, Howard. Anyone ever told you that?"

"Lots of times. Are you going to tell him?"

"Yeah." It was the only way he was going to get any peace, agreeing with the mad bastard.

"Good." Howard stood and disappeared into the kitchen and came back a second later minus his teacup. Then he headed in the direction of the stairs.

"Oi. Where you going?" Rob asked.

"You'll see," Howard said, then disappeared up the stairs with a wink.

"He's a mad man," Rob said, dropping back on the sofa. "I'm taking advice from a mad man."

"I heard that, Rob," Howard shouted down the stairs.

"I fucking meant you to," Rob shouted back.

* * *

Jason followed behind Mark's Rover all the way back to his house. He'd offered to leave his car behind, to ride with Mark, make sure he was alright, but Mark had told him not to be daft and kicked him out of the Rover. Which had made Jason more certain than anything that Mark would be okay.

Mark slowed as they approached his house, rolled to a stop and then sat in his car. Jason parked the Mercedes, then got out and poked his head in the passenger side of the Rover. Mark was staring at the front door, chewing his lip, with a death grip on the steering wheel.

"You coming, Mark?"

Mark nodded without taking his eyes off the front door, then pocketed his keys and got out of the car. Jason followed behind him as they approached the house, waited as he pulled out his keys again to open the door. He didn't even have his hand on the door when it was pulled open.

"It's about time you two got back," Howard said, shooing Mark inside, with Jason following behind. "Rob's waiting for you." Howard gave Mark a push into the lounge. "You two have some things to sort out." 

Jason started to follow, but Howard put a hand on his chest, stopping him.

"We've got things to sort out too. But not here." Howard lifted up Jason's messenger bag and a carrier bag that seemed to contain all of the very few things he'd brought with him. "I've booked us into a very nice hotel." He gave Jason a big grin. "We've got a suite and a hot tub."

"But—"

"C'mon. I'm not giving them time to think." He nodded in the direction of the lounge. "I'm not giving you time to think either." He pinched Jason on the bum. "Move."

Jason moved, though not without thinking that this must be how shanghaied sailors felt.

He got settled in the Mercedes, with Howard beside him.

"Do you think this is a good idea? Just leaving them alone? I thought you were the one who wanted to look after Markie." 

"Rob's ready to talk. It looks like you've got Mark sorted. And they're both adults. They'll be fine."

"I hope you're right." Jason tried to feel as confident as Howard apparently was.

"Besides, I didn't feel quite like doing this with Mark and Rob around."

"Doing wha—" Jason started to say. But then Howard grabbed him by both shoulders, leaned in, and kissed him.

If he'd thought their kisses this morning had been intense, this one put them all to shame. Howard's mouth was hot over his, his tongue forcing open Jason's mouth. Jason thought it was a wonder he could breathe, the way Howard made him feel, like he'd fallen off the top of a towering mountain, the wind rushing past his body in an exhilarating blast.

Some time during the kiss, Jason had taken Howard's shirt in his fist, and he sighed in disappointment as Howard finally pulled back from him and he was forced to ease open his hand, reluctantly releasing the fabric from his grasp.

"Hotel?" Howard asked, a far too satisfied grin on his face.

"Hotel." Jason answered, starting up the car and slamming it into gear. "But you have only yourself to blame if I crash the car in frustration." 

"I'm willing to accept the blame for that." Howard leaned in and gave his thigh a quick squeeze before he sat back and fastened his seat belt. "Now let's see how fast this old wreck can get us to Windermere."

Jason reckoned it was a measure of how much he loved Howard that he didn't even defend the honour of his car as he took the turn onto the main road.

* * *

Mark stumbled into the lounge looking as shell-shocked as Rob felt. Which was funny, because Rob hadn't reckoned anyone could be as terrified as he was just at the moment. His hands were shaking, his heart was thundering in his chest, and he desperately wanted a fag.

_Tell Mark_ , Howard had said, as if it was the easiest thing in the world. As if that didn't involve unearthing things Rob had been hiding even from himself for ten years. 

Instead, he stared at Mark, at the way he was chewing at his lip, at the way he'd stuck his hands into his pockets so his shoulders were hiked up around his ears, and he tried to find the words that needed to be said.

Mark found his own words first.

"I missed you, Rob." Mark might have been standing right in front of him, but his voice sounded faint and distant. "All the time." Mark looked down, as if making eye contact with him was causing him physical pain. "I don't want to miss you like that anymore."

"Oh, fucking hell." The words escaped from Rob's lips, not what he'd hoped to say, but all he could manage. Then he was moving forward, sweeping Mark up in his arms.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," Rob whispered in his ear. "I meant to hurt everyone else, but not you." He felt Mark trembling in his grasp, and he squeezed him more tightly, as if he could erase all those years, all that pain, with this contact. He turned to kiss Mark on the cheek, his intention innocent as yet, but Mark turned at the same time and their mouths met and all pretence of innocence was lost as he tasted tea and cake, tasted red wine and cigarettes, tasted Mark.

The heat of Mark's mouth spread to his, down his throat, his chest, and straight to his cock. He felt the hum of Mark moaning into his mouth, and then he was totally lost. He moved his hands lower, to Mark's arse, and then Mark's legs were wrapped around his hips.

It was too much, much too much. He carried Mark across the room and tipped them both onto the sofa, hearing a soft "oof" as he landed on Mark.

"Sorry," he said, trying to ease off him, not wanting to hurt Mark, but Mark wouldn't let him go, kept a firm grip on the front of his shirt until Rob stopped pulling away. Then they both scrambled madly with clothes, struggling with zips and buttons, pushing shirts up and trousers down until they had just enough skin exposed, but not nearly enough for Rob. And they moved against each other, skin against skin, cock against cock, Mark biting his shoulder, the thin edge of pain from his teeth heightening the pleasure even more. 

Rob was never sure afterwards which of them came first, the aftershocks from his orgasm merging with Mark's. Or was it the other way around? Not that it mattered. It was just the two of them, curled around each other, slick and sweaty and happy.

He looked down at Mark, smiling up at him through a tumble of hair, and he couldn't quite believe they'd got here this quickly. He couldn't believe he was happy. He really was fucking happy.

But as quickly as that thought appeared, the doubt set in. What had they done? What had _he_ done?

"I'm going to squash you," he said, trying to sit up, to get off Mark. But Mark was having none of it.

"I like being squashed." He locked his hands around Rob's back and ground his hips into Rob's.

Rob's cock gave a traitorous twitch at the contact, but the doubts began to multiply. This had been a mistake. A total fucking cock up. He struggled to break Mark's hold, but Mark seemed to realize what was going on in his head. His expression went serious, and he wrapped one hand around the back of Rob's neck.

"It's alright, Rob." The hand on his neck rubbed the back of his head. "You don't have to run again. I won't hurt you. I'm here for you."

Mark's words opened up something inside of him, ripped through scar tissue he'd thought too tough to rupture and left an open wound so painful it left him gasping.

"Let it out," Mark whispered into his throat. "Just let it out."

Finally, he could resist no longer. He buried his face in Mark's chest and he wept.

* * *

Howard managed, just, to keep his hands off Jason on the drive to the hotel, but the bastard didn't make it easy. He kept looking over at Howard with his distractingly long lashes and licking his lips in a way that made Howard think of all sorts of things he'd rather Jason do with his tongue. 

He paid the barest of attention to the girl at the desk when they were booking in, conscious only of Jason lurking behind him. He scarcely had the key in hand before he was pushing Jason in front of him through the corridors to their room, the most private one in the hotel, he'd been assured on the phone.

Opening the door, he waved Jason inside, then closed the door firmly behind him and had Jason in his arms in an instant.

"I think the girl at the desk recognized us," Jason said, even as Howard tried to kiss him.

"I don't care," Howard said, then licked the line of Jason's jaw.

"She's the right age for it."

Howard nipped at Jay's earlobe, and tried to hold back his frustration. It would be just like Jay to bottle it if he thought they'd been recognized.

"She didn't recognize us," he insisted. "I don't have the dreads anymore, and you're skinnier and scruffier than you used to be. She was just eyeing up the two handsome gay blokes checking into her hotel." He finally took Jason's mouth in a bruising kiss, walked him backwards until his knees hit the bed, then pushed him onto the mattress. Before Jason could move, Howard had straddled him, dropping kisses on his mouth, his throat. Before he could do any more, before he could start peeling the clothes off him, Jason pushed him back.

"Shouldn't we talk?" he asked.

Howard nearly moaned in frustration, but he held it in and kept calm.

"No." Howard leaned back in, biting him on the shoulder. "No, we shouldn't."

"But—"

"No buts, Jason. No more talking. I know you. If I let you talk, you'll talk yourself out of this completely. I've seen you do it. Convince yourself not to sleep with a beautiful bird or a handsome bloke. But it's really simple. I fancy you. You fancy me. There's nothing else to say."

Howard expected more argument, to have to fight this point. After all, he might have got them to this place much sooner except that he'd thought about it too much. But Jason surprised him. He just laid back on his elbows, smiling at him. And that made him nervous.

"What are you smirking at, Mr Orange?"

"Thought you didn't want to talk." Jason smiled even wider.

"Thought you did." Howard couldn't believe he'd said that, had actually encouraged the mad idiot to talk.

"Nah. You're right. I'd just talk myself out of this." He grabbed the front of Howard's shirt. "And I really don't want to talk myself out of it."

Jason gave his shirt a yank, and Howard let himself be pulled on top of him, his arms landing on either side of Jason's head. Then he did what Howard had been hoping for, had been longing for: he licked his throat up to the line of his jaw, the sensation wet and hot and rough. He arched his neck, presenting more flesh to Jason, and this time Jason added teeth, biting delicately at the flesh of his throat, at his earlobe, until Howard felt his control slip entirely.

He hissed, and scrambled madly to get Jason out of his clothes, peeling off all the layers hiding his skin while Jason did the same to him. Then they were naked and wrapped around each other, and Howard could feel everything, Jason's hard cock, his erect nipples, his fingers tracing down Howard's ribs until they found his hipbone, until they moved around to squeeze his arse.

"What do you want, Jay?"

"You inside me." Jason bit his lip. "But that's not wise, is it."

"Why not?"

"We've got no protection, and we're neither of us angels."

"Wait a minute." Howard gave him a grin and a kiss, then went and grabbed the carrier bag he'd brought from Mark's and pulled out condoms and lube.

"You never had those with you the whole time?" Jason looked at him warily.

"I nicked them from Mark's night stand." He crawled back onto the bed. "He had extras."

"Confident, weren't you."

"No. Hopeful."

"Christ, How..."

Jason blinked quickly, and Howard thought he saw a suspicious sheen in his eyes. But then Jason grabbed him, pulled him down, and kissed him so hard their teeth clashed together, and all further thought evaporated in the heat of the moment. Just as Howard thought he might blackout from a lack of oxygen, Jason pushed him back and held out one hand.

"Give it over," he demanded, wiggling his fingers promisingly, the excess of emotion in his eyes replaced by a powerful hunger.

Howard placed the condoms and lube carefully in Jason's hand, then watched eagerly as he tore open a foil package with his teeth. He hissed as Jason rolled the latex over his cock, then prepared him further with lube, the sensations nearly enough to bring him over the edge.

"Ready?" Jason asked.

Howard nodded, not trusting his voice not to crack or vanish entirely.

Jason rolled back, his knees up, making himself open and vulnerable. 

"C'mon, How," he said, his voice gone husky with the same need Howard was feeling.

Howard didn't wait for a further invitation. He pushed into Jason, breaching his tight opening as he scrutinized Jason's expression, slowing when he winced in pain, pressing on when he saw that pain turn to pleasure. Finally, he was buried to the hilt, with Jason looking up at him, mouth open and panting, sweat forming on his forehead.

Jason craned his neck forward, and Howard strained down to meet him, hissing as Jason took his bottom lip between his teeth and pulled. Then Jason released him, and said one word.

"Move."

He didn't need to be told twice.

He began to thrust, slowly first, then faster and faster as need overtook his concern for Jason. Jason urged him on, wrapping his legs around Howard's torso, then fumbling between them with one hand. Howard pushed his hand away and took Jason's cock in his own fist, stroking him in the same rhythm as he was fucking him.

They didn't last long.

Jason came first, his cock pulsing in Howard's fist, even as his back arched and his whole body shuddered. The sensation around his own cock was too much, and Howard felt himself going over the edge. A final thrust and he was spent, collapsing in Jason's arms and trembling with the aftershocks of his orgasm.

He laid like that for several long minutes, Jason surrounding him, his now softening cock still buried inside this beautiful man, reluctant to pull out, to lose this primal connection between them. But finally his arm cramped, and his calf twinged, and he had to pull away. Jason protested as he stood and disappeared into the loo for a moment, only to emerge with a cloth for cleaning them both up, and without the condom. Then he laid down again, pulled the duvet up over both of them, and snuggled up with Jason.

"Bloody hell, Howard, why did we never do this before?"

"We were idiots. And we were afraid." He gave Jason a rough, matter-of-fact kiss on his scruffy cheek. "At least I know I was."

"So was I." Jason tightened his hold on him. "Still am, most days. But we can't let that rule us." He gave a slight laugh. "That's what I told Mark, anyway."

"You're a wise man, Jason Orange."

"'Course I am. I picked you, didn't I?" Jason squeezed him tightly.

"That makes you a fucking genius," Howard said with a chuckle.

"And you are far too modest."

"I try."

Howard wanted to say more, wanted to tell Jason how much this meant to him, wanted to do it all again, wanted Jason inside him this time, but he felt sleep beginning to overtake him.

But there was one last thing he had to say.

"Love ya, yer daft bastard," he whispered in Jason's ear.

"Love you, too," Jason returned. And then sleep took them both.

* * *

Rob slept, curled on his side, one hand tucked underneath him. In sleep, his face was unguarded and impossibly young. Sprawled beside him, his head on one hand, Mark watched over him, gently stroking his cheek whenever Rob stirred in his sleep, whimpering at a dream or perhaps a memory.

He'd been expecting it, but Mark had still nearly frozen in shock when Rob had finally cracked, when he'd wept into his chest. But he hadn't frozen. He'd held Rob tightly, stroking his back until his sobs had finally stopped, then had coaxed him off the sofa and upstairs to his far more comfortable bed. They'd stripped down, both strangely shy considering what they'd just done, and laid down, arms and legs tangled together until Rob finally surrendered to sleep.

Now, hours later, Mark could see Rob begin to wake. Rolling onto his back, his eyes fluttered open, and he reached out. Mark took his hand, threading their fingers together, holding him tight.

"Good morning," Mark said.

"Is it morning?" Rob asked, scrubbing his free hand across his face.

"Not really. It'll be dark for hours yet."

"Good." Rob wriggled closer and wrapped himself around Mark, resting his chin on Mark's shoulder. "I don't want to do anything but lie here with you for hours anyway."

"You're an idiot," Mark said mildly, as he sighed into the warmth of Rob's skin. 

"No, I'm a fucking genius, me." Even though Mark couldn't see his face, he could hear the smile in his voice, and it made him smile too.

Mark didn't think he'd been this happy for ages, for years. He'd somehow got exactly what he'd wanted, what he'd never thought possible. But as soon as he'd recognized the happiness, he started poking at it, looking for the holes, looking for the way it was all going to fall apart.

"Why'd you come, Rob?" He tried to keep his tone light, but he could hear the tension in his own voice, just as he could feel the tightening of Rob's muscles at the question. 

"Like you said, Markie: I missed you."

"But that's not all."

"No." Rob drew out the word as if avoiding the true answer. "Look, you don't really want to know all this, do you?"

"Yeah." He wanted to know everything, he didn't want any secrets. He didn't want it to be like last time, when he'd only found he'd been standing on rotten ice when he'd plunged through to the icy waters beneath. "I do."

"Okay." Rob pulled back until he was looking at Mark. "I missed you, and I felt guilty for hurting you, and I was still pissed that you sided with Jay and not me. And God help me, I still wanted you."

Mark carefully noted the past tense in the last sentence.

"Do you still want me?" he asked, bracing for the worst possible answer.

"Fuck, Mark. Of course I do." Rob leaned in and gave him a crushing kiss. "This isn't just a one off." He hesitated. "Not unless you want it to be."

"No!" Mark returned the kiss with equal intensity. "I want you too."

"Good. My turn." Rob let his thumb play across Mark's shoulder, a slight frown creasing his brow. "Why did you side with the boys?" The question was asked casually, but that didn't hide its importance to Rob. Mark chose his next words carefully.

"You...weren't really there, were you? You were always off with your new friends, getting drunk or off your head. I felt like I'd already lost you, and I didn't want to lose the rest of the boys." He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry for it all. I'm sorry that I stood behind Jay. I'm sorry that I didn't try to help."

"You were a kid, Mark. We were all kids. None of us were equipped to deal with what we were thrown into."

"I'm still sorry."

"I'm sorry, too. For leaving you alone with the others."

"I survived. We all did."

"I should get another tattoo: Take That Survivor."

"You wouldn't dare," Mark said with a laugh.

"How about the TT logo?"

"Don't be a knob."

And just like that, their mood shifted from sombre to joyful, their embrace devolving into a tickling contest that had them nearly throwing off the covers and ended with Mark straddling Rob.

"Fucking hell, I'm glad you came, Rob."

"Me too." Rob got a devilish grin on his face that gave Mark precisely one second warning, and then he turned and flipped, pinning Mark to the sheets with a twist of his hips. "Now I'm going to make you come."

"Bastard," Mark said, as he smiled up at Rob and waited for him to make good on his threat.

* * *

**Epilogue**

Gary paced the floor of the hotel suite, wishing he had something to do besides fret. He was the one who'd asked the record company for this, a room at the Hilton where the four of them could relax before the premiere, but everyone else was late and now he wished he'd just had the car pick him up at his house. _Bloody typical_ , he thought. _They'll all be late for their own funerals, them_.

The mysterious phone calls he'd got this morning hadn't helped his mood either. Jason and Mark had both called to let him know they had something to tell him, but that it would have to wait until tonight.

"C'mon, Jason. Just tell me."

"You'll want to hear this in person, Gaz. Trust me."

Mark had been even more firm.

"I need to see you to tell you this, Gaz. Please understand."

He hadn't understood, but he'd assured Markie he did. So here it was, an hour before the premiere of the documentary, his first real public appearance in ages, and he was stood on his own, waiting anxiously for everyone else to turn up and put him out of his misery.

He nearly jumped when he finally heard the click of the lock, and turned to see Howard and Jason coming in, arm in arm.

Annoyed he might be, but it was still fantastic to again be in the same room as the boys. He broke into a smile and greeted them both with hugs, then stood back to give them a once over.

"You two look great." And they did, both fit and smiling and as assured as he'd ever seen them. "You sure you two haven't been off attending premieres all the time we've been off?"

"Far from it, Gaz," Jason said. "I've mostly been avoiding the spotlight."

"Well, it's agreed with you, whatever you've been doing." He sat down on the sofa, arms on the back and held Jason's eye. "So, what's this mysterious news that you couldn't tell me over the phone?"

Jason looked over to Howard, and gave him a raised eyebrow.

"Do you want to tell him, How?"

Howard's mouth compressed to a thin line and he shook his head.

"Fine." Jason turned back to Gary. "The thing is, well, Howard and I..." He trailed off and looked back at Howard, who looked down and shuffled his feet.

"Fuckin' hell, boys, what could be so hard to say?" After waiting all day for this grand revelation, Gary was just about ready to shake them both until they talked. Instead, he picked the most ridiculous of all the scenarios he'd dreamed up on his own. "Don't tell me. You've started sleeping together and want to announce your engagement?"

Howard nearly choked on that, actually started coughing until Jason gave him a great slap on the back. 

Then Jason turned back to him.

"That is it, actually. Well, the sleeping together part, not the engagement." Jason looked a bit sheepish. Howard, Gary was interested to note, looked a bit pleased and proud.

"Oh." The shocking part, Gary reflected, was that he wasn't shocked at all. No, it all made perfect sense, if he thought about it.

"Oh? That's all you've got to say?" Jason's voice rose, and Gary wondered if he was going to witness a Jason Orange panic attack, an attack he knew just how to prevent. 

"That, and congratulations." Gary broke into a wide grin, and swept Jason, then Howard into a hug. "Dawn's thought you two should get together for years."

"Dawn thought what?" Jason said, a pained expression on his face, even as Howard said a hearty "Thanks, mate."

Any meltdown on Jason's part was halted when the door opened again, and Mark entered the room.

"Did you know about this?" Gary asked, gesturing at Jason and Howard. "That our Jason and Howard are a couple?"

"Yeah, Gaz. I sort of did." Mark gave him a smile, but it was a weak sort of smile, nothing like he'd expect from Markie in the face of such good news. In fact, looking at him more closely, Mark looked a bit off. Handsome in his new suit, but nervous.

"You okay, Marko? Nothing wrong?"

"No, Gaz. Nothing's wrong." Mark didn't sound entirely convincing, but Gary decided to let it go for now.

"So, what's your news? You got a boyfriend you want to spring on me as well?"

"Yeah." 

Gary couldn't take his answer seriously. It had to be a piss take. Howard and Jason, that made sense. But little Markie?

"Who is it? Ronan Keating? You'd look good on the red carpet with him tonight."

"Not quite," Mark said, then chewed on his lip, his reaction more than anything finally getting through to Gary that this was real.

"Who is it, Mark?"

"Well..." Mark looked over at Howard and Jason, standing with their arms slung over each other's shoulders. Jason gave him a little nod of encouragement, and Gary felt a wave of cold nausea pass over him. There was only one bloke Mark had ever had eyes for, only one person he'd be this reluctant to admit as a boyfriend.

"It's Rob, isn't it?" He wanted to be wrong. He wanted desperately to be wrong, but he knew he wasn't. And Mark confirmed his fears with one word.

"Yeah."

"For fuck's sake, Mark." The words exploded from him. "You know what he's like. You, of all people, know what he's like."

Mark flinched, but held his ground.

"He's changed, Gaz. He's not a kid anymore. We're none of us kids anymore."

"Fucking hell." Gary threw himself into the nearest chair and tried to calm down. He'd told himself he'd forgiven Rob, but that was for the past. If he was with Mark, that opened up a whole future for him to hurt Mark again like he'd hurt him last time. And if that happened, Gary honestly didn't think forgiveness would be an option.

But then again, no one had ever made Mark quite so happy as Rob. On good days, their joy together had been infectious. And there'd been a lot of good days, before everything had gone to shit.

He looked at Mark, standing on the carpet, hands in his pockets, worrying at his lip with his teeth.

"Does he make you happy?" Gary asked. "Really happy?"

"Yeah, he does." And there it was: the patented Mark Owen dazzling smile. The honest smile, the smile he couldn't fake. The smile that told Gary that maybe this wasn't such a bad idea after all.

But then he was struck by a horrible thought.

"He's not coming tonight, is he?" He could possibly accept Mark and Rob as a couple, but he wasn't quite ready to talk to him. Later, but not now, and not on such a big night.

"No, Gaz. He knew this night was for the four of us. Besides, I think he was more scared of seeing Nigel than he was of seeing you. He does want to talk to you, but later. When you're both ready."

"Right, then, there's just one more thing."

"What's that?" The worried expression returned to Mark's face.

"You tell him if he breaks your heart again, I'll have 'im."

Mark broke into a smile, and Howard laughed, and then Jason swept them all up into a group hug that seemed to go on forever. And as brilliantly as the rest of the night went--the premiere, and the congratulations, and the after party--afterwards it was the hug Gary always remembered when he thought of this night.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, as always, to soundofthesurf for being my kind first reader, to saintvic for providing a Lake District consult, to cenea for being an enthusiastic beta, and to m. butterfly for her impeccable editing skills. And massive appreciation to ice-cream-skies for producing such a perfect illustration for the story.


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